It's okay to not be okay - World Mental Health Day

10 October 2018

Every year, the poll of most stressful jobs in the UK circulates social media. For as long as we can remember, PR & Advertising has ranked in the top 10. Years ago we’d laugh about it, and roll out the ‘it’s PR not ER’ mantra. But actually, rather than brush it off, it’s important as a business to understand that stress and anxiety can be triggered by a number of things, big and small. And just because you’re not physically saving lives, doesn’t mean that what or how you’re feeling isn’t important.

This isn’t the first blog that we’ve written about mental health and wellbeing at MERCIECA. It’s something that’s important to us, because our people are at the heart of our business. We have a super active team. Whether it’s running 10k to raise money for one of our charity partners or climbing up Mount Snowden, we all do our best to ensure we’re looking after our bodies. But we’re equally vocal about how important it is to look after our mental fitness too.

We’re ever evolving how we ensure as a team we not only think about our physical fitness, but the fitness of our minds too. We actively participate in #FitFeb – giving the team time back to attend a yoga class, visit a museum or simply go for a walk. We’ve had a host of external speakers such as The Naked Professor, Jack Green andSean Holley. We’ve amplified the opportunity to utilize flexible working hours and even more recently we’ve been seeing where technology can help to improve mental health within our workplace. Alongside our buddy programme we’ve recently invested in an Employee Assistance Helpline so that our team has 24/7 access to counselling.

Thanks to inspiration from a recent MERCIECA talk with The Naked Professor, we’ve also been reminded about gratitude. Remembering to celebrate the wins no matter how big or small. And not getting bogged down in the disappointments. They’re there to help us grow and evolve. We now have a Victory Board – a place to share our successes, thoughts and things that we’re grateful for.

“There are two sides to your brain. One that encourages you to see the positive in a situation. And the second half that can pull you down with overthinking or negativity. It’s important that we help the positive half win by being kinder to ourselves”

The Naked Professor

So we are. We’re celebrating our victories.

Our leadership team is now fully equipped to ensure that we can spot the difference between pressure and the symptoms of an underlying problem. And our team is openly encouraged to talk. Everyone has a bad day. At MERCIECA the mantra we now follow is very much that it’s okay to not be okay. And to look out for each other.